Lessons from the Sessions: Stop Paying Bills Through PayPal (and Other Budgeting Mistakes You Don’t Know You're Making) | 473

0:00Today, we're bringing you real life stories and lessons from our private coaching sessions. If our clients are dealing with it, chances are you are too. So we're breaking it down to help you avoid the same mistakes, feel less alone, and walk away with some quick wins for your budget. Do you make good money but have nothing to show for it? Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? Do you have big dreams for your financial future? Do you want to get debt-free but you don't want to live on beans and rice? Or you don't want to give up those pumpkin spice lattes? Hey, it's okay if you don't already know how to budget or if you're using credit cards to get through the month.

0:31Hey, it's okay if you want to seem like you have your finances all together, or you're not on the same page with your spouse when it comes to finances. We know what you're doing probably isn't working, but guess what? You're in the right place. We're Shana and Vanessa. We're best friends, business partners, and master financial coaches trained by Dave Ramsey. We've been in business since 2019, helping hundreds of amazing people like you create budgets, get out of debt, stop living paycheck to paycheck, and know exactly what to do with their money. In this podcast, we'll share with you everything we know, plus everything we're working on with our clients so that you have the best chance at reaching your financial goals.

1:07We want to help you take the guesswork out of your budget, improve your marriages, and even bring your kids in on the conversation. We can help you no matter where you're at, whether you're the single mom who's never had$500 in her savings account or the millionaire who's paid off four real estate mortgages. And we're not going to shy away from the tough love. We'll tell you what you need to here and encourage you at the same time. This is the Financial Coaching for Women podcast. I've had this client, Shana, for a year and a half. She's a real estate agent. She's very high functioning. She is like a go-getter.

1:41And we deal a lot with her business budget. Sometimes her personal budget, not that I love it, but just time allows, she really wanted to focus. She hired me to really focus on her business. So we try to do her personal, but sometimes it gets missed because there is a lot to talk about getting and we're trying to get her entire business a month ahead and in the real estate world where it's a roller coaster of income super important it's it's just a little harder so we've been dealing yeah we've been working through this so anyways she made a comment about how her husband is still using paypal like because all the accounts are attached to paypal and it's so convenient to use people because all Well, the merchants accept PayPal.

2:19And they're like, we just have everything listed there. So what gets used, and he always knows that there's money in there, is the bills account. No. Girl. So I said, oh, that's really cute. I understand. She said, it's really hard and blah blah. And I said, this is real easy. I said, you are going to remove the bills account from PayPal. You are going to go on to those individual companies' websites like AT &T and the water bill, the company, like your phone bill, all of that. you're going to log on and you're going to attach either your ACH payment or your debit card there and that's how you're going to pay all your bills.

2:54That's going to be so great. So that way the bills account is not in PayPal. And she was like oh but it's so secure and I said so is your bank. Yes so is your bank and so are these companies like your utilities they are very secure. All you did with PayPal is add a third party to who's secure. And now they're getting paid. Yeah. So you're not only are you paying the Netflix subscription, you're paying Netflix. Now you're paying PayPal to pay your Netflix subscription. So it's like a double whammy. It's just complicating the whole process. It is. And a lot of times when you do the NACH transaction straight from the company website itself, they're going to cut you a discount.

3:26Like my phone bill gives you a 30 % discount by using ACH and by having a reoccurring automatic payments. And paperless. And paperless, like all three of those. Let's go for it. So I'm just letting you know that all these little excuses that we try to give ourselves, like why we can't be successful, why this isn't working. It is a fixable, it's a solvable problem. We just have to get around it. And there's that saying, if nothing changes. So you've been doing that and you felt like you, you feel like it's messy. You feel like something's not working. That's why. And so you want to, we want to uncomplicate, like there doesn't need to be a third party involved in paying your bills, especially while we're trying to change habits.

4:05So I think about me and I use, I use PayPal, but it's so nice. Like when I need to pay for something for the kids, like a lesson or something, it comes from the kids account. Yeah, but you're disciplined. I know. And like, I do have a couple of bills. I think Apple automatically bills through PayPal, or I don't know if it is, but it feels like it does for me. So like my Apple storage comes from, and my Apple music, but that's attached to my bills account. And so because we've had, we have the system set in place, we have the habits set in place. There are years that you can do that. But in order to get there, you've got to just break, break it down, get back to the, go back to the basics, make it very simple, make it un-mess-up-able.

4:44It's un-mess-up-able. And when I'm talking about PayPal, it's not just PayPal. We want you to take Amazon, another big culprit, Apple Cash or Apple Pay or whatever. That's another big culprit. Just take it all out, allow yourself, give yourself the space to make it simple. Give yourself the space to be successful by just taking out all of those extra ways that can ruin your budget, wreck your budget, make it complicated now you have to go back and figure this out and do this another let's just make it simple and then once you feel like really confident with that once you're on a trajectory with that maybe you can add some things back in but at first we want to keep it simple you're just you're not to the phase yet where you're disciplined enough to make this happen and I understand what you're saying if people are saying it's convenient absolutely that's the point that's why they're doing it and now there's shop there's like shop one oh I was in the store and they're like you can sign up for Klarna.

5:32I was like, I think it was maybe Walmart. I don't know. On the loudspeaker, you can sign up for Klarna on checkout. I was like, no, you can't. And I said it out loud and I was like, oh, people don't do that. Yeah. So no, you can't. Don't do that. They make it so convenient for you and you don't have these habits in place. So it's not a good idea. Just don't even allow yourself to make it an option. So pay all your bills directly from the company websites. And then sure, put all of your different accounts on PayPal if you want, as far as your spending accounts for now. And then once everything is flowing and you see the system is working, if you want to move back to PayPal, fine.

6:04But at this point, like you probably don't need to. Yeah. So another, so for my lesson, it's very similar in that we just want to keep it simple. And that is something that we will repeat and repeat. We want to keep your life simple. All right, budget besties, it's time for some real talk. You don't need another budget. You need a budget system. Our simplified budget system is what you've been looking for. It's going to allow you to be bougie on a budget. You'll be able to easily set up a system that runs automatically and shows you exactly where your money is going. And it's going to give you permission to spend.

6:37Everybody loves that. Yeah. It's straightforward, pretty, and packed with walkthrough videos that break down the exact methods we use with our clients to get out of debt, set up a bills account, separate spending, build savings buckets, and end the paycheck to paycheck feel. If you're new to budgeting, this is the perfect way to jump in. And if you're already a budget nerd like us, you're about to meet your new obsession. This is the upgrade to your finances that you need right now. Yeah. So head on over to budgetbestdc.com forward slash budget and grab yours. Now back to today's show. So I started making my new client's budget and I was trying to put everything down that she had.

7:16And for example, she had$200. She told me a paycheck amount, but then she said, but also$200 every paycheck goes to this other bank that I have that is a savings account. And I was like, okay. And then, and then her HELOC, several payments actually were very even. Like it was several 500, 400, 200. I was like, that is really neat that all of your creditors have given you such a nice, even payment rounded number, rounded number that really helps. And no. So what had happened, what happened is really, she just had, she had no control over what was really happening. Right. So I said, let's go back and see what your actual minimum payments are.

7:53We're going to put those in the budget, right? We're not paying extra. And she doesn't even know the minimum for her HELOC, right? And that's what happens. Like we just get in this mode where we don't really know our numbers. And for her in particular, getting some of this cleaned up is actually what's going to help her make progress. Now I can see just because I say I can afford a$500 when it's only$293 or something, doesn't mean I can. It seems like a good idea. But what am I, I'm not paying, I'm not setting aside money for Christmas. So all of that extra money that I think I can pay really had a better job I could have been giving it.

8:23And so we just really want to simplify this and put all the basic numbers on there. Let's not have random like transfers from the paychecks. Let's not do any of that. Like just put the actual numbers, keep it simple. Don't add, like we even teach you, start with your income, then your debts, your bills, and your spending. Once you really truly, once you feel like you've got that down, then we can add savings and figure out how to automate that. But really getting, separating the bills and spending and getting all of the basics on your budget is really where it's at, where you want to start. And then we can talk about some other stuff.

8:52I think some people hear us say only pay the minimums and they think, oh, these girls are so against paying extra on debt. That's not what we're saying. We're saying you have to know your numbers. You have to know what are you required to pay every month, first of all. And then we can look into what the extra is and what do we want to do with that extra. Again, some people, their goal is not to pay extra on debt. And that's okay. Some people it is. And for the majority, we have most of our clients, that is their goal. They want to get out of debt. Totally fine. But let's do it the smart way. Let's not do it the random way where we're doing like an extra 50 bucks here and$10 here and 40 bucks here.

9:26And I don't even know what my minimum payment is because I've had it at 500 for three years. And oh, I only owe 150 a month now, but I'm struggling and I can't get groceries. That's the problem with this is we set these certain amounts to pay each month in our debt when it's quote unquote taking up extra money that could be affording regular, normal, everyday things like gas and groceries, but you're probably putting gas and groceries on debt because you don't know that you have the money. So you're in this cycle of staying in debt because you've set these minimums to be above the norm so you can put more in principle, but it's not helping you.

9:57So it's just, it's a big, it's a big mess. And so that we're not saying we're against you paying on principle. Definitely want you to get out of debt, but you just have to do it the right way. Yeah, and so the right way is just to list it out simply, like we said, like we teach on your five columns and just get that working, feel good about that. And like Vanessa said, we're not against extra on debt, but if you have$200 left over the first month, that's fine. Let's just get you using the system. Let's have you feel confident. And then once we really start seeing, seeing that it's working, then we can target.

10:28If you're paying$500 a month, but it's only like Vanessa said, 193 or something, that's$300 that you might be able to pay off a card and not have a$30 payment. And then the next month, then the next month. So that's what we want to do. We want to get it simple, get it on one piece of paper, like we say, and go from there. Yeah. So thanks for joining us for another lessons from the sessions. We hope that you enjoyed these moments that we have with our client sessions. If you're tired of feeling like your finances are all over the place and you're ready for a simple set it and forget it way to budget, we have something special for you.

10:59Watch our automate your budget masterclass at budgetbesties.com forward slash automate. We'll show you step-by-step how to finally organize your money, how to set up your account, and put your budget on autopilot so your bills, saving, and spending run like clockwork. Imagine less stress, more savings, and the freedom to spend money without having to track every dollar or babysit your bank account. Go to budgetbesties.com forward slash automate to start today.